On Monday, after video footage of law enforcement forcibly dragging a ticketed passenger from a United Airlines plane went viral, the company’s C.E.O., Oscar Munoz, issued what we in the business call a “Sorry I’m Not Sorry” letter, essentially blaming the 69-year-old victim for getting himself ejected from an overbooked flight. Notably, on Monday, shares of United Airlines were unaffected by the scandal, closing out the day at $71.40. But as the social-media backlash grew stronger, and more videos of the incident emerged, the company’s stock began to fall, dropping as much as 4 percent, with the company losing nearly $800 million in value at one point on Tuesday. And there’s nothing like the threat of angry shareholders to get a corporate C.E.O. to offer an actual, true apology—even if it was his third attempt. Here’s what Munoz now has to say about the events that transpired at Chicago O’Hare Sunday, per Business Insider:

The truly horrific event that occurred on this flight has elicited many responses from all of us: outrage, anger, disappointment. I share all of those sentiments, and one above all: my deepest apologies for what happened. Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard. No one should ever be mistreated this way.

I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right.

It’s never too late to do the right thing. I have committed to our customers and our employees that we are going to fix what’s broken so this never happens again. This will include a thorough review of crew movement, our policies for incentivizing volunteers in these situations, how we handle oversold situations and an examination of how we partner with airport authorities and local law enforcement. We’ll communicate the results of our review by April 30th.

I promise you we will do better.

Sincerely,

Oscar

Perhaps Munoz can teach White House press secretary Sean Spicer a thing or two about the fine art of apologizing when you’ve f*cked up massively, though in reality, that Hitler-shaped ship has probably sailed.

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Billionaire Trump adviser: W.H. is going to take “logical” approach to tax reform

After the historic failure of Donald Trump and the G.O.P. to repeal and replace Obamacare, the White House has said they will set healthcare aside to focus on getting tax reform done. Building consensus on tax reform, as you probably know but Team Trump legitimately may not, is almost as, if not more, complicated than healthcare. So how is the administration going to successfully get this done when, not 100 days into their tenure, they failed spectacularly on one of Trump’s biggest campaign promises? They’re going to go about tax reform in an entirely different matter, according to Blackstone founder and Trump adviser Stephen Schwarzman. Which is to say, they’re going to apply logic and reason to the situation. Per Bloomberg:

Trump’s plan to overhaul the tax code . . . will follow “a more deliberate, logical approach than trying to pass health care in 17 days,” Schwarzman said. “That is not going to happen” for the tax plan, he said.

That much, at least, is obvious. While Trump said in early February that he would announce something “phenomenal” on taxes in the “next two or three weeks,” the White House has yet to release a plan. On Monday, the Associated Press reported that the administration had decided to scrap its current plan (whatever it is) and start over entirely. Officials warn that there’s little chance they’ll pass anything by the August deadline set by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

Trump promises to make bankers “very happy” with “something else”

As we’ve discussed at length, Wall Street and business executives have a dream: for President Donald Trump to pass “phenomenal,” “big league” tax reform and slash costly regulations. Trump, aware of this dream, has taken every opportunity to say things like “We’re going to do a big number on Dodd-Frank” and Dodd-Frank is going to get “a major haircut,” without actually offering any details or substance regarding his grand plans. Naturally, today was no different. Per Reuters:

Donald Trump told a group of chief executives on Tuesday that his administration was reducing regulations and revamping the Wall Street reform law known as Dodd-Frank, which might be eliminated and replaced with “something else.”

“We’re going to reduce taxes, we're going to eliminate wasteful regulations,” Trump said at a meeting attended by corporate leaders and members of his cabinet.

“For the bankers in the room, they’ll be very happy because we’re really doing a major streamlining and, perhaps, elimination, and replacing it with something else,” Trump said on Tuesday. “That will be the minimum. But we’re doing a major elimination of the horrendous Dodd-Frank regulations, keeping some obviously, but getting rid of many.”

Trump, you may recall, ran for president on a populist platform, promising to champion the working class and stop Wall Street from “getting away with murder.” He’s apparently replaced that promise with “something else.” Stay tuned.

Back in November 2016, when Anthony Scaramucci still looked like he’d be getting a job in the White House, the irrepressible Trump cheerleader went on MSNBC and claimed that First Son-in-Law Jared Kushner, whose father is a billionaire and who spent his free time at Harvard driving a Range Rover and flipping condos, reminded him a lot of Alexander Hamilton, America’s favorite bastard orphan. “Young, scrappy and hungry,” Scaramucci tweeted with a straight face after people asked him if he was serious. “Incredibly smart. Great innate business sense. Just the type of person we've been yearning for in government.”

Months later, things aren’t going as well for the Mooch. After selling his business and preparing to move to Washington for a job as an assistant to the president, he was told that his deal to sell SkyBridge Capital to an opaque Chinese conglomerate posed too many ethical headaches (it’s also possible that chief of staff Reince Priebusjust doesn’t like him.) Scaramucci, bless his heart, is still reportedly holding out hope that somehow, someway, he’ll still get a job in the administration. Which is presumably the reason he felt the need to double down on his hilariously absurd claim that he sees a lot of Hamilton in Trump’s son-in-law.

“I think he is like Alexander Hamilton,” Scaramucci told Chris Cuomo on CNN Monday. “He is a young man who has a tremendous amount of maturity.”

“What do you mean he's like Alexander Hamilton? He's nothing like Alexander Hamilton,” Cuomo responded, for all of us.

“He's got the trust of the president. He's very, very thoughtful. He knows how to bring people in . . . that was Hamilton's great gift at a very young age," Scaramucci said.

Kushner, as my colleague Emily Jane Foxhas reported, has in recent weeks been essentially given the title of C.E.O. of America, with a massive portfolio that includes tasks like solving the opioid crisis, optimizing government I.T., fixing Veterans Affairs, and overseeing his father-in-law’s possibly doomed $1 trillion infrastructure plan. In his free time, he’s been visiting lawmakers to chat about criminal-justice reform and making appearances in Iraq sporting Wayfarer sunglasses and wearing a blazer under his bullet-proof vest, which is very Hamilton. His ability to handle all of these jobs, let alone one of them, has also been called into question, given his previous government experience is nonexistent and his business experience has been running his family’s real-estate empire, with debatable results.

Investors look to gold as Trump government scares the crap out of them

When the world is looking like a terrifying place, investors tend to stock up on gold. And when Donald Trump is the leader of the free world, the world can be just that. Per CNBC:

Gold posted a breakout session Tuesday as investors took risk positions off the table as geopolitical tensions rose. Futures on the precious metal jumped 1.6 percent during the regular session, bringing their year-to-date gain to above 10 percent. The metal kept going higher in after-hours trading with the futures reaching an intraday high of 1,277.40, which was their highest level since November 10. Gold futures also surpassed their average price of the last 200 days, a common measure used by technical analysts to determine a trend.

Investors have a lot to worry about: Last Thursday, the U.S. launched an airstrike on targets in Syria as a direct response to a recent alleged chemical attack by the Syrian government. The attack, meant to dissuade further use of the weapons, have chilled relations with the Russian government, an Assad ally . . . Early Tuesday, Russian president Vladimir Putin claimed the U.S. is preparing strikes on the Damascus region with the aim of blaming the Syrian government. Putin, showing no proof, said the U.S. was planning to “plant some substance and accuse the Syrian authorities of using (chemical weapons).”